Africa-Press – Zambia. MORNING WIRE | PF Convention Month Opens With Fractures, Fear & Calculated Posturing
The Patriotic Front enters November not as a unified opposition force, but as a party negotiating survival. Its first convention since losing power is a test of muscle, loyalty and money, and the stakes are visible in the behaviour of its leaders and operatives. The drama began inside the Central Committee on 2nd November, where raised voices and near-fights exposed the fragility behind the public declarations of unity.
Witnesses inside the Lusaka meeting told us tensions erupted when a faction attempted to push for an outright endorsement of Given Lubinda as party leader. One member present described the atmosphere bluntly:
“This was not a meeting. It was a battlefield.” Another senior official said “Chairs were almost flying. The party almost split in that room.”
The defeat of the endorsement attempt forced PF toward a convention, but with bruises and resentment intact.
On 3rd November, Acting Deputy Secretary General Brenda Nyirenda stepped out to steady the optics. She made a calculated appeal to government over Edgar Lungu’s still-delayed burial. “We are ready to help them handle the Lungu issue,” she said.
“It is painful not to lay a former president to rest.” But she also made clear the burial will not delay internal change.
“We will not use this tragedy as a scapegoat. We are moving forward.” Her tone signaled vulnerability and resolve, a deliberate play to show discipline without denying grief.
The convention’s nomination window opened the same day. On 4th November, Johannesburg-based businessman Willah Mudolo paid his K200,000 fee and added a K50,000 donation.
He framed his bid around unity and urgency, saying “We cannot risk another five years of this government. Let us work together. Let us save our country from ruin.”
In a follow-up statement after meeting Given Lubinda in South Africa, Mudolo doubled down: “I reaffirm my commitment to the PF. This is about unity and transformation for 2026.”
Yet party intelligence points to a different frontrunner: Brian Mundubile. A PF provincial organiser put it plainly: “Mudolo talks to Facebook. Mundubile talks to structures.” Inside PF, patience and history matter.
Mundubile has neither the flash nor the foreign accent, but he has ground loyalty. A Central Committee member explained the quiet support: “He understands the party. He has never abandoned the field.” That silent network remains Mudolo’s biggest obstacle.
Meanwhile, the burial of Edgar Lungu remains the emotional and symbolic fracture. Nyirenda called it “a national embarrassment,” while insisting dialogue with government can end the standoff.
A former minister sympathetic to Lubinda sharpened the tone privately: “Nobody wants a corpse politics campaign, but we cannot pretend it has not weakened us.” There is a truth in PF circles: the party that once marched under Lungu now cannot bury him, and that vulnerability shapes morale and power plays.
Money is the other silent variable. PF set a lean budget, capped delegate numbers and imposed high candidate fees. Those are signals of strain in a party once powered by state resources. One provincial youth chair said it bluntly off-record: “We used to eat big. Now we pay to compete.”
The party’s future leader will inherit a movement running on memory and hope, not government levers and contracts.
This convention carries echoes of 2014, but context has shifted. Then, PF fought inside the State House shadow. Now it fights in opposition with litigation, factional wounds and a shrinking war chest.
A veteran PF strategist summarised it crisply: “If this process collapses into violence, we finish. If we come out clean, we live to fight 2026.”
The calendar is fixed, the emotions raw, and the question clear: can PF produce coherence, or does it produce crisis?
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